Losing Weight, Gaining Life

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347. Missions Accomplished

Yesterday I mentioned one of my February goals is to cross 5 items of my Mission 101 lists; however, I haven’t given you many updates on some of the goals I’ve recently knocked off the list. Since December I’ve crossed 4items off my list, reached a major milestone in completing another goals, made definitely progress toward other goals and revised a few goals as well.

The first weekend of December, Nik and I took a road trip some place I’ve never been before. We decided to take a long weekend, and I suggested a mini vacation down to St. Louis for a Blackhawks vs. Blues hockey game. The game was awesome – at least a third of the people there were Chicago fans – and I had a blast going on the trip with Nik. But I think I’ve decided that road trips just really aren’t my thing. I’m like a baby or little kid. As soon as you put me in the car, I pass out. Being asleep for most of the trip kind of takes the fun out of a road trip no?

I also sent out holiday cards this year, er, last year. Every year since I graduated college, I’ve intended to send out holiday cards, but I never managed to actually do it. I bought stamps first figuring if I bought the stamps then I had no excuse not to buy and send cards. One of my mom’s friends makes handmade cards so I bought a bunch of cards from her and sent them to my family and friends.

And since my holiday spirit seems to be at an all-time high, I also participated in a gift “tree” of sorts. Back in September my company did a service project that involved painting the lockers in a local community elementary school that is struggle to be kept open in the face of dropping enrollment. Part of that process is to make the school aesthetically pleasing. It needs to look like a place you want to send your kids to school. For Christmas this year, my company decided to do a Secret Santa project for the kids in the school with the goal of getting a gift for all 119 students. The school is in a very low-income area so for some of the kids, these would be the only gifts they get this year. I picked two students – a boy and a girl both ages 5 – 6 – and got them each a game and a book. (Yeah, I’m that jerk who gave educational gifts.)

Another item I tackled in December was to knit myself a scarf. I took up knitting back in college, but somewhere along the way, I fell off the needles. I’ve wanted to get back into it, but I just never did. I mean, I only knew the knit stitch and I’d never attempted anything more difficult than a scarf. And frankly, you can only knit so many scarves before a) your bored and b) you have more scarves than you or your friends know what to do with. Then for my birthday, Laura sent me a little Mission 101 jump start kit which included two knitting books. Since then I’ve reading the book and messing around learning different stitches. A couple weeks ago, a woman I regularly talk with on the train and bus brought me a set of circular needles. I suddenly had everything I needed. I just finished a horizontally knitted scarf. It was the same basic knit stitch of all the scarves I’ve made in the past, but for this scarf I used the circular needles and each row is the length of the scarf rather than the width of the scarf. I’m very excited about it! I’ll definitely be posting a picture when I actually wear it. (I only had one skein of yarn so I made it pretty thin making it more of a fashion scarf then a “for warmth” scarf.)

I also recently hit the half-way mark of reading 101 books. This is pretty impressive considering I didn’t REALLY start this goal until sometimes in the middle of 2011.

I’ve also updated a few of my goals. In an ideal world, I would complete all 101 goals as originally written, but this isn’t an ideal world. Circumstances change. Priorities change. Relationships change. Desires and interests change. So here are my “replacement goals:”